Timothy Spangler: Why is India going to Mars?

Nov. 8, 2013

Updated 12:00 a.m.

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A handout photo of Mars Orbiter Mission Spacecraft, also called Mangalyaan's Mars Orbiter, launching from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, Nov. 5, 2013. India lofted a Mars-bound spacecraft into Earth's orbit on Tuesday, a major step in its hopes to become the first country in Asia to reach Mars. NEW YORK TIMES PHOTO

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Indian Space and Research Organization Chairman K.Radhakrishnan poses with a model of the Mars orbiter after its successful launch at Sriharikota, India, Nov. 5. India launched its first spacecraft bound for Mars, a complex mission that it hopes will demonstrate and advance technologies for space travel. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO

A handout photo of Mars Orbiter Mission Spacecraft, also called Mangalyaan's Mars Orbiter, launching from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, Nov. 5, 2013. India lofted a Mars-bound spacecraft into Earth's orbit on Tuesday, a major step in its hopes to become the first country in Asia to reach Mars. NEW YORK TIMES PHOTO

India, a country more closely associated in many minds with extreme poverty than with space exploration, launched a rocket to Mars this week. The Indian Space Research Organization, India’s version of NASA, sent a rocket named Mangalyaan on the year-long journey to our nearest planetary neighbor.

The goal of the Mars mission is scientific, but the political and strategic implications of the space program should not be underestimated. These missions play an important role in building India’s case that one day soon it will be included on the list of superpowers. India would join the United States, the former Soviet Union and Europe in having successfully sent a probe to Mars. Importantly, China’s recent attempt to reach Mars failed, giving India the chance to earn valuable bragging rights over its Asian rival.

However, India still has almost 700 million people who survive on no more than $2 a day. Many Indians lack electricity and indoor plumbing. Malnutrition is widespread among children. Perhaps most surprising to Westerners is that there are more impoverished people in India than in all of Africa.

Critics believe that New Delhi’s extravagant spending, estimated at $1 billion annually, on a vanity project like space exploration, is misguided and wasteful. The scientific value of obtaining methane samples from the Martian atmosphere, they claim, pales in comparison with the real good that could be done with that money at home. They argue that pursuing national glory at the expense of yet another generation of impoverished children is not a wise use of limited resources.

Perhaps the pursuit of glory in outer space is simply an attempt by frustrated Indian leaders to turn their back on the insoluble problems they face back here on Earth!

Although India boasts more than 50 billionaires, the day-to-day lives of most Indians still lack many of the hallmarks of modern life, like literacy and an adequate diet. This is despite two decades of economic growth averaging 6 percent a year, less than China’s double digit rates, but far above the “Hindu rate of growth” of 2 percent for many years.

The awkward reality, of course, is that there is not a single India, but, rather, several different Indias that only intersect and overlap at the margins. Billionaires, millionaires and the successful middle classes each live quite separately from each other, lives incomparable to the daily struggle facing the impoverished majority. In that light, if we disregard for a moment those consigned to soul-crushing poverty, we still have a dynamic and successful country of several hundred million men and women, significantly larger than the U.S., Russia or Europe.

In short, the reconciliation of these different Indias has become the biggest challenge for New Delhi. While pursuing the grand ambitions of the “haves,” Indian leaders must still address the pressing needs of the “have nots.” These constituencies have very different aspirations.

For example, India is campaigning for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Such an appointment would be a real achievement for this country of 1.2 billion and, many would concede, a better reflection of the world in the 21st century. However, India’s inability to make a meaningful dent in many of the key poverty statistics raises doubts in some minds about whether the country is ready for such an important leadership role on the global stage.

Grand projects can bring out the best in a country. The pursuit of lofty goals can instill ambition across an entire generation. Of course, politics is about making choices, invariably involving limited resources and competing demands. It is worth remembering, therefore, that when the first “space race” was proceeding at break-neck speed between the United States and the Soviet Union 50-plus years ago, there were many Americans who voiced serious concerns similar to those being raised today by critics of the Indian program.

We shouldn’t forget today that during most of the 1960s, a decade of tremendous upheaval and unrest, most Americans did not believe that the Apollo program was worth the billions of dollars spent on it. In 1971, just two years after the historic achievement of putting a man on the moon, 200 African Americans protested at the launch of Apollo 14. According to one of the protest leaders, Hosea Williams, “We are not protesting America’s achievement in outer space. We are protesting our country’s inability to choose humane priorities.”

Today’s critics of Indian extravagance in space couldn’t state their own case any clearer than this.

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